1990: The Bronx Warriors and Escape From the Bronx are Italian post-apocalyptic action films directed by Enzo G. Castellari and starring Mark Gregory as Bronx gang leader, Trash.

The second one of these films was campy enough to be featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000 under a different name. I’m going to discuss the 1990: The Bronx Warriors and its sequel together, since anyone interested in the one is likely to want to watch the other.

Casting in these movies included an unknown bodybuilder and the Hells Angels. American actors like Vic Morrow, Fred Williamson, and Henry Silva lent their talents to one or the other of these stories.

Early 80s and Post-Apocalyptic Fiction

It was the early 1980s. Ronald Reagan was in office, calling the Soviet Union the evil empire. While in office, Reagan joked he had signed a bill banning the Soviet Union and he would start launching warheads in 5 minutes time.

Now to hear them talk now, Ronald Reagan was as horrified as anyone when his generals told him we could “win” a nuclear war that would have left 2/3rds of Americans dead. He was also flabbergasted when his saber rattling and a few ill-timed events (Beirut bombing, European war games, bad intel) left the Soviets believing we had launched nukes in 1983–and were minutes away from launching a counterstrike! This really happened, and when a few days later a CIA spy reported this to the White House, it led to serious disarmament talks.

The public knew nothing of this. In fact, the Cold War seemed to be at a fever pitch in the early 1980s. Post-apocalyptic films were going through a golden age. The Road Warrior was capturing imaginations and many copies and offshoots were produced around the globe. The Bronx Warriors was obviously inspired by Escape from New York, while Ezno Castellari appears to have had a major fetish for A Clockwork Orange. Wrap that up in an Italian B-movie package and you get 1990 and Escape from the Bronx. I’ll start with the original, so let’s enter the dark future that is…1990.

1990: The Bronx Warriors Review

Trash Adds a Certain Elegance to Mourning and Revenge

The original movie seemed to have a bigger budget and appeared to have been filmed in and around New York City. Inside scenes were filmed in Rome. This movie featured Vic Morrow, Fred Williamson, and the Hells Angels. It also had a greater sense of fun about it.

Now it may seem odd to describe a post-apocalyptic film as “fun”, but this movie took itself less seriously. The basic story involves the interplay between Manhattan and the Bronx. Manhattan seems to have survived whatever horrors this alternate-world 1990 went through, enough that you’ll see large amounts of traffic anytime you peer across the East River on the island. In fact, you would think it was any normal day in 1980s New York City–which of course it was. The New York skyline seemed unchanged by the wars which left America prostrate and the Euro-Asia-Africa bloc claiming victory in a war. Apparently, the Russians forgot to nuke Manhattan.

The Bronx didn’t get out so well. We’re told repeatedly how bad it is to live in the Bronx. It’s described as lawless and run by gangs. People from Manhattan wouldn’t be caught dead there–pretty much like in real life (unless they’re going to a Yankees game). The gangs certainly run things, but life isn’t as bleak as you’d expect from the description. For instance, in one scene, you see a group of 4-5 kids down the street playing basketball on a public court. That’s not how I expect nuclear winter to be, but maybe I’m just being pessimistic.

Manhattan is, naturally enough, home to the Manhattan Corporation, which supplies the world with 60% of its military hardware. The heiress to the Manhattan Corporation, Anne (played by Stefania Girolami), can’t take it an instant more, so she runs away from her gilded cage into The Bronx, hoping to get away from some undisclosed terrible situation. Anne is nearly captured by the Zombies, but is saved by Trash and his Riders (no spoilers–this is the first 10 minutes of the film). Before we get to that, let’s talk about the zombies.

Zombies on Wheels

I love the early eighties. This is when dudes on roller skates carrying hockey sticks and wearing painted white Nazi helmets were considered cool and menacing. I suppose if you were walking down the sidewalk and these people appeared, you’d probably be pretty frightened, since you would have to think these people were deranged. Still, you’d have to chuckle to yourself a bit. Adding to their sense of menace, the Zombies have white Old Navy jackets and yellow elbow pads. You have to be tough to pull off that outfit.

Trash and the Riders

Not tough enough for the Riders, of course. These guys look like the Hells Angels because, well, they are the Hells Angels. America’s most famous bikers got a walk-on role in The Bronx Warriors. Unfortunately for them, they had to follow decidely non-Biker actor, Mark Gregory (Trash).

Mark Gregory was cast as Trash because Enzo G. Castellari and he worked out at the same gym. Enzo Castellari thought he had the perfect look for an action hero. Trash certainly was buff, though he was awkwardly tall and he had this jaunty walk. I use the term “jaunty” because I can think of no other way to describe it accurately: too-good posture, stiff, just very odd. (He was less stiff, and less buff, in the sequel). Something about Trash seems effiminate. With his youthful face and long hair, Trash looked like he should be the frontman in an Eighties hair band.

From what I’ve heard, the Hells Angels were none too impressed by Mark Gregory. In his turn, Gregory apparently wasn’t much impressed by movie making. Termed shy by the director, Mark Gregory has since faded into obscurity, enough so that Enzo Castellari started a 2004 website (now defunct) to help locate his former actor (http://www.bronxwarriors.co.uk/Hunt%20for%20Trash.htm).

Fred Williamson as Ogre

A more convincing gang leader is Ogre, head of the Tigers. Ogre is played by Fred Williamson, who gives his usual solid performance. One day, I’d like to see a study of action stars which tracks their survival rate in action movies. Fred Williamson always seems like a bad man, totally competent and likeable, but doomed from the start. That’s just my observation.

Maybe I just need to see more of the early Fred Williamson movies, though. I heard once he had three rules when working on films: he never loses a fight, he never dies, and he always gets the girl. Williamson claimed he sometimes waived those rules when he made Italian films, because he liked filming in Italy so much. There, he was a movie star, not a blaxploitation star.

Whatever the case, the gangs were fun in Bronx Warriors. Each one had a gimmick, right down to the tap dancing gangs. Again, several reminded me of A Clockwork Orange, but these were fun. A big part of the conflict is Trash’s eventually need to get across town (The Bronx) through several gang’s territories. That was good stuff, though the action left a little something to be desired at times. Also, I’m not so sure how tough Trash was supposed to be, because things like netting seemed to give him trouble.

Vic Morrow as Hammer

One of the big treats of 1990: The Bronx Warriors was Vic Morrow as Hammer. Hammer is sent by the corporation to get Anne back. As a man from the Bronx originally, he’s uniquely qualified to find the missing heiress. It also helps that he’s a psychopath. This was the penultimate film in Vic Morrow’s career, because he was killed on the set of The Twilight Zone movie when a helicopter accident (struck by the chopper’s blade) left him dead. To see Vic Morrow in all his glory, watch The Bronx Warriors.

All in all, this film was so silly that you had to like it. I feel like it’s vastly superior to the sequel, 1990: Escape from the Bronx, if for no other reason than it was less overtly political and more of a romp. I’ll review that other film in the next few days, so stay tuned.

I’ve noticed that films about dreams tend to appear on lists of the oddest movies time and again. To prove my point, I’ve listed 5 strange movies that happen to be about dreams, daydreams, or fantasies of some sort. Nothing is easier to depict strangely than dreams. By their very nature, dreams and nightmares have an irrational quality to them. It’s only natural that certain creative directors would want to explore the unconscious mind.

A more novel approach might be an attempt at a more literal, analytical dissection of dreams through filmmaking, but that brings me to a theory. There are three types of directors: those who pose questions, those who give us answers, and those who give us a show. Dream films are about presenting watchers with a set of questions that we answer ourselves. We’re given images and interpret them ourselves.

Arizona Dream (1993)
If it’s got Johnny Depp in it, then you know it has to be oddball cinema.

Arizona Dream has a 86% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which may rank it among the highest-rated of strange movies. Emir Kusturica directs Johnny Depp, Faye Dunaway, Vincent Gallo, Jerry Lewis, and Paulina Poriskova through a movie about a fish, Eskimo dreams, and lots of other strangeness. One of the dream scenes at the end of the film might be considered a ghost sequence, but I’ll let you be the judge of that.

Brazil (1985)

Brazil is the story of a low-level government functionary (Jonathan Pryce) who has daydreams about a saving a damsel in distress–that is, a beautiful maiden. Robert de Niro and Katherine Helmond also play key roles in this black comedy set in a dystopian, even Orwellian future (though it’s Orwell turned on his ear). Terry Gilliam of “Monty Python” fame directs in one of his trademark tales about the industrial world we live in.

A Waking Life (2001)

This trippy film written and directed by Richard Linklater is about a young man slowly waking up from his dreams. This becomes an exploration of everything from lucid dreaming to existentialism to politics and even post-humanity. The film was acted by real people, then rotoscoped based on their acting. The cast include Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy, Adam Goldberg, and Steven Soderbergh. Wiley Wiggins plays the protagonist.

You know a movie is getting heady and philosophical when it has an all-star cast of living philosophers. Real-life professional thinkers like David Sosa, Kim Krizan, Robert C. Solomon, and Louis H. Mackey make appearances.

Richard Linklater would go back to this well again in 2006 for his A Scanner Darkly, which I’m going to have to watch again, because I turned it off the first time. (Something about having Keanu Reeves trying to philosophy just turned me off–God bless him.) I preferred this A Waking Life. If you watched A Scanner Darkly or think this sounds like drivel, I’ll point out it does have an 80% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, though I think critics sometimes give a pass to mediocre movies if they’re supposed to be smart. Just my opinion, though.

Black Moon (1975)

“Black Moon” could also make a list called “Movies about Unicorns” or “Films about Alice in Wonderland”, which should give you some idea of the oddities you’ll find in this production. Louis Malle was the director of Black Moon, which is about a girl trying to escape a civil war between men and women and ends up in another world…a kind of dream world.

“Black Moon” stars Joe Dallesandro, Alexandra Stewart, and Therese Giehse and was supposed to comment on the womens liberation movement of the 1970s. If you can come to conclusions on the movement based on what you saw in the film, write to me and I’ll give you a shout-out, because I couldn’t make heads nor tails of it. I did like the inclusion of Joe Dellasandro in the cast.

Joe Dellasandro is the former male prostitute turned underground film sex symbol of the 1970s. He starred in movies like Flesh for Frankenstein and Blood for Dracula (also known as “Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein” and “Andy Warhol’s Dracula”), where he’s famous (kind o) for his bizarre portrayal of a communist hero fighting that dirty aristocrat, Dracula. Yikes!

Anyway, Black Moon is a weird exploration of dreams, but it can’t be too whacky, since I saw part of it one night on Turner Movie Classics.

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972)

“The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie” won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film along with an Oscar for Best Screenplay. The director is once again Luis Bunuel some 43 years after his surrealist masterpiece (alongside Salvador Dali), An Andalusian Dog. That’s good training for this story of a gathering of five upper-class bourgeois friends and the dreams of four of the group. The narrative doesn’t follow a logical path, though the characters seem to accept it as such. If you get put-off by such traits in film characters, you might not like this one. Still, when you’re watching a movie about dreams, you almost have to expect certain flights of fancy with the narration.

Elements of the plot involve a fictional republic, a theatrical stage, a female terrorist, sex, cocaine trafficking, a remote country road, more sex, and social snobbery. It’s almost like someone took a hat full of story elements and drew a certain number at random. Still, I’ll give Luis Bunuel credit for making entertaining dream sequences.

Odd Films about Dreams

These cinema classics have appeared on several lists of the weirdest films in the world. It’s no coincidence they all happen to be about dreams, or that’s how I interpreted these DVDs. Tell me if I’m wrong, people.

I know I’m overlooking some great movies about dreams, so I encourage readers to reach out and let me know about oversights. I’d like to see what other directors have to say about the human subconscious and what that has to say about our waking state.

“Father’s Day” by Troma Entertainment is a retro-farcical exploitation film that offers lot of energy and some skill in the film making. I have to admit I’ve become jaded about most horror films these days, because they just seem to fall into too many patterns. You can’t say that about Father’s Day. Not many horror movies could be described as “rollicking”, but Father’s Day is one of them.

Anyone who’s ever seen Troma films knows what they’re getting into: blood, gore, gratuitous nudity, and probably some gross-out moments. Father’s Day, marketed by Troma as an answer to Mother’s Day, fulfills all those descriptions.

I didn’t expect much from Father’s Day and ended up being pleasantly surprised. When I saw that the director was “Astron-6“, I thought to myself, “Oh, no, this was done by some artsy European director.”

It turns out Astron-6 is a movie making outfit from Canada whose taste in film blends nicely with Troma Films.

TASTE WARNING: Before I discuss the movie too much, let me warn anyone who’s easily offended to stop reading. Don’t let your children read this review, because they’ll be scarred for life. Since this is Oddfilms, you shouldn’t have to be told. Let’s start.

Father’s Day Plot Synopsis

Father’s Day revolves around a serial killer named “Chris Fuchman”, who goes around town sodomizing and then killing fathers. Years ago, Fuchman murdered the father of Ahab (Adam Brooks) and Ahab is out for revenge. This is one of those stories where the boy grows up with one goal–to become a bad-ass and get revenge. Made an orphan by Fuckman’s evil, Ahab traveled the world, hid out in the woods, and learned the art of making maple syrup. Meanwhile, Ahab’s younger sister (Amy Groening), is packed off to an orphanage and grows up to become a stripper.

Also meanwhile, Twink (Conor Sweeney) is a good-for-nothing who gives men blowjobs and argues with his concerned father, played ably by Billy Sadoo. When Twink’s Dad is brutally sodomized and murdered by Chris Fuchman, Twink gets in on the revenge game.

The monster-hunting trio is completed when Father John Sullivan (Matthew Kennedy) gets in the game. One of my favorites was Twink’s partner in slime, Walnut (Garrett Hnatiuk).

My favorite character of the movie was Father O’Flynn (Kevin Anderson), the Irish Catholic priest who made pronouncements from his deathbed. The blind father’s eyes were glowing, making it appear that his feeding tube must have been pumping radioactive material into him. Cool visual, though.

This group goes off to find Chris Fuchman, learn about his connection to the Fuckmanicus, and put a stop to his evil. Along the way, we get to see lots of bare breasts, more dingus than I’d care to have seen, and lots of gore. You also find out what Ahab’s tasty berries are all about. Father’s Day is epic, even cosmic, in scope, as the action ranges all the way from Heaven to Hell and everywhere in between. You also get to see Troma Entertainment’s co-founder, Lloyd Kaufman, play both God and the Devil. Good stuff.

Father’s Day Review

Father’s Day is a revenge tale mixed with a slasher film. Along the way, Father’s Day becomes complete farce, but that’s a good thing. You could tell that the cast and crew of Father’s Day had a good time making this movie, which translates to entertainment for the viewers. I won’t say that a cast having fun always equals entertaining (see those godawful “Ocean’s Eleven” films), but it usually helps when a film like this doesn’t take itself too seriously. There’s nothing worse than the pretentious bad horror movie–and this isn’t it.

Father’s Day, like all Troma films, is low-budget. You won’t always see a lot of skill in the acting and direction, though the film had better acting than most low-budget horror shows. Some of the dramatic shots and poses were top-notch, too. All in all, Troma Film’s Father’s Day should entertain most horror watchers. It beats the hell of out Land of the Dead.

Random Thoughts on Father’s Day

• Ahab looks like a cross between Jason Lee and Jeremy Piven–with an eyepatch.
• Chelsea looks a little like Willow from Buffy if she were really hot, brunette, and a stripper.
• Twink appears to be the lovechild of Jake Bussey and Napoleon Dynamite.
• Father John Sullivan looks like a wimpy version of Christian Bayle.
• I kept wondering why Sleazy Mary showed up so much–I felt like I was supposed to know who she was. Sleazy Mary was played by Conor Sweeney’s sister. Despite being in a non-hot role, I thought she was kinda attractive.
• Yes, Chris Fuchman does look a little like a fat Dwight Schrute.
• Father’s Day won Best Film and five other awards of Toronto After Dark 2011.

About the Director – Astron-6

Astron-6 is a collaboration of five Canadian actors and filmmakers: Matthew Kennedy, Adam Brooks, Conor Sweeney, Steven Kostanski, and Jeremy Gillespie. Conor Sweeney’s sister, Meredith Sweeney, is occasionally seen in photographs of the bunch. She’s listed as an “Astron-6 favorite”. The Adam Brooks in Astron-6 is not the Australian politician or the Canadian director and screenwriter, no matter what Wikipedia says. Matt Kennedy is also not a retired American soccer player.

The Tree of Life is the oddest film among the 2011 crop of Oscar nominees. Director Terrance Malick tells a story similar to what we know of his own life story, growing up in Waco, Texas in the 1950s as the oldest of three brothers and having a brother who died at an early age.

Any Tree of Life explanation needs to guess what’s going through the mind of one of Hollywood’s most reclusive figures.

To guess the meaning of The Tree of Life is pretty simple, though.

The boy character is coming to grips with a senseless death and God’s role in that death, along with his role in people’s lives leading up to that death. This leads to a number of questions. Is God an uncaring, distant being? Do the lives of God’s many creations matter at all to him? Does he exist at all? Or is he so intimate in our lives that he’s too close to see, his manifestations so everyday and mundane that we look right past it?

To analyze these questions, look no further than the title of the film. Those reading this analysis shouldn’t assume I’m stating my theory on the meaning of life. Instead, I’m trying to interpret what Terrance Malick is showing us through his art.

The Tree of Life – Culture References

The term “Tree of Life” has been used as a symbol in religious, spiritual, and philosophical thought for thousands of years. References to a tree of life are found in cultures spread around the globe.

From ancient Egyptian and Chinese myth to Norse mythology to Jewish Kabbalism, a tree of life has been used to describe many different concepts.

In recent years, the term has even been used for a scientific theory involving the Earth’s ecology. The life tree or family tree has been used to describe ancestry and bloodlines for centuries.

In most cases, the term is meant to convey interconnectedness. Everything and everyone is connected in some way. In Norse myth, the world tree or Yggdrasil connects the nine realms together. The underworld are the tree’s roots, Earth is just a bit above, and the lands of giants and gods sit on its branches.

In Kabbalah, the tree of life includes ten levels, each associated with another aspect of God. At the bottom sits Malkuth (the Earth we know), while at the top sits the Kether (the glory of God). In either cases, it’s all part of one whole.

The Book of Job

The Tree of Life begins with a quotation from the Old Testament (Job 38: 4-7). The quote states, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth … when the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?” This is a question God asks of Job, but it’s only the beginning of God’s longest speech in the Bible. Read through Job 37 through Job 41 and you’ll see imagery that appears in the movie again and again. I’ll point these out at several points during this analysis, but let’s talk about the light at the beginning of the film.

The swirl of light at the beginning of the film is Terrance Malick’s first depiction of God, but by no means the only one.

Much of the imagery of the movie’s first 30-40 minutes also depicts his God. Notice how the camera stays on the ocean waves as they swirl about in the surf. Notice the flock of birds as it twists and turns, contorts and swirls about in the sky over the city. Notice the puff of cigarette smoke and how it swirls about in the frame. By choosing several unconnected things which have the same characteristics, Malick is showing us that God is present in everything.

The Eye of God

This vision isn’t confined just to Earth, though. The scenes of the creation of the universe, the fiery plasma jets of the stars, the spiral galaxy, and the swirling colors of the nebula are all just other manifestations of the Biblical God to Malick. The director is showing us what God said in the quotation–the Creator laying the foundation of the Earth.

The nebula shown in the film is called the Helix Nebula, but after the Hubble telescope took pictures of this beautiful piece of space, people have begun calling it “The Eye of God“.

Tree of Life Interpretation

The film goes on to show the propagation of life on the Earth, including depictions of the dinosaurs (whose bones are later found by the boys) and even the primordial ooze where amino acids first began to combine into single-celled life.

One might think this is a creationist’s nightmare, but the point here is that God was there through every stage of evolution–even the moment the meteor hit and extincted the dinosaurs, paving the way for mammals to rule the Earth. You might think the point of the film is to say, “With such grand scope and so many millions of years in the making, what does the death of one little boy mean to God?”

That’s not the director’s point at all.

Go back to Job 37 and you’ll see what made God so mad that he appeared to contradict the mortals. The words immediately proceeding God’s appearance are: “The Almighty is beyond our reach and exalted in power…he (does) not have regard for all the wise in heart?”

This angers God, because men are assuming he’s beyond the veil, uncaring and unfeeling. You can imagine Job’s surprise when God appears to contradict these words.

Light in The Tree of Life

Let’s return to the idea of interconnectedness. Once you start to see that Terrance Malick is depicting God as the nature around us, you start to see that God’s a vital part of every scene. The use of light to depict the Creator Being in the first frame of the film means that every time light is prominent in a scene (and that’s often in a Malick film), it’s meant to depict His presence.

Think about all the scenes where light is shining through trees, through the window, or on the faces of the congregation. Notice the light on the wall while the mother is holding her newborn baby. Notice the sunlight shining through the window as the child climbs the staircase. Notice how the sunlight draws your eyes in all those weird scenes of the attic. Each of these is meant to convey that God is there, whether people recognize it or not.

Tree of Light Final Scenes

Most of the middle parts of the story don’t need to be explained too much, as they’re for the most part literal and the meaning is clear. The final scenes of The Tree of Light might need to be explained, since you have that odd moment where Sean Penn walks through the stone doorway. Once again, this is taken from Job.

In Job 38:17, God asks, “Have the gates of Death been shown to you?” The full quote is this, “Have the gates of death been shown to you? Have you seen the gates of the deepest darkness?…What is the way to the abode of light? And where does darkness reside? Can you take them to their places? Do you know the paths to their dwellings?”

Sean Penn’s character, who’s obviously familiar with the Bible from his childhood, is imagining he’s walking through death’s door and emerging in the so-called “abode of light“.

One of the first ideas put forward (by the mother) is the thought there are two types of people: people of nature and people of grace. Brad Pitt is certainly a “man of nature” throughout the movie, while his wife is depicted as a “person of grace”.

You get the idea that Sean Penn, businessman that he is, must have been a man “of nature” throughout his life. One of the final scenes between Brad Pitt and his son acknowledges that the two are alike. But in that moment outside his office building in Dallas, where he imagines himself with his mother and brother and father in the land beyond, the son takes comfort in being a person “of grace”.

Tree of Life Interpreted

The depiction of the eventual demise of the Earth might be troubling to some–but this inclusion raises God from some pagan nature symbol to something else.

We learn that the source of light and the symbol of God throughout the film isn’t really God, but just another manifestation of that being. A pagan movie would show the Sun to be eternal and all-powerful.

In The Tree of Life, the Sun is shown to be only another symbol of the Divine Being, no more eternal than dew on leaves after a rain or the wind blowing those same leaves when the fall appears. Like any other part of the cosmic Tree of Life, the Sun is just another branch of the great interconnected structure.

In the immortal words of Inspector Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) from The Dead Pool, “Opinions are like assholes. Everybody has one.” Never was this more true than in the case of Dogtooth, the 2009 Greek comedy/drama/train wreck from director Yorgos Lanthimos.

What a shame, then, that most of the opinions on this movie are so far out of whack.

You see, this cinematic turd in the punch bowl didn’t get laughed out of theatres when it debuted. Instead, critics heaped wave after wave of praise on Lanthimos and the boys. Dogtooth won the Prix Un Certain Regard at the ever-pretentious Cannes Film Festival, was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars, and it currently holds a 92% freshness rating from critics over at Rotten Tomatoes. Even more puzzling is the general audience rating of 72%, although most of these are likely the same folks who patted themselves on the back while watching Black Swan and Inception.

I felt bloodied and battered myself after sitting through Dogtooth.

Dogtooth is set in a walled countryside home located somewhere in Greece, although the vague locale could take place anywhere in the world. Living inside the compound is a nuclear family on the verge of a meltdown, with strict discipline and non-stop brainwashing being carried out by the mother (Michelle Valley) and father (Christos Stergioglou). Their post-pubescent children, two girls (Aggeliki Papoulia and Mary Tsoni) and a boy (Christos Passalis), have never journeyed into the world, and their only contact with the outside is a factory security guard named Christina (Anna Kalaitzidou) who the father pays to satisfy his son’s sexual needs.

These effed-up kids are fed a steady diet of misinformation, such as cats being the most dangerous predators lurking beyond the high walls of their well-maintained prison. The mother also teaches them new words on a regular basis, but these tutoring sessions are twisted to render the children incapable of communicating with anyone outside of the family unit. There’s also plenty of licking, incest, barking, and the most laughable dance sequence since Chris Farley competed against Patrick Swayze in a skit on Saturday Night Live. And all the while, we witness the fantasy realm constructed by the parents beginning to crack and crumble.

The Dogtooth sisters prepare for the world's most ridiculous dance routine.

It’s obvious that director Lanthimos has something to say about obsessive parenting, home schooling, and blind obedience, but he takes too damn long to get to the point. A scene involving a stray cat and a pair of garden shears should have come much sooner than the 40-minute mark, and even the ironically serene cinematography by Thimios Bakatatakis fails to make up for too many moments that seem inspired by some hellish mockery of Wes Anderson.

And don’t get me started on the emotionless dialogue and listless delivery. Yes, I realize that it’s done for effect, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. Boring with a purpose is still boring.

Patient viewers will find themselves chuckling in places, but I’m frankly baffled as to whether or not this was the desired reaction. Dogtooth is enigmatic filmmaking at its finest, although that’s like saying Charlie Sheen is Hollywood weirdness at its best. Skip it and watch Oldboy instead.